


be still my foolish heart (don't ruin this on me)

by donutcats



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Canon Typical Swearing, Canon Typical Violence, F/M, M/M, Soulmates, different timelines, queliot is more of a secondary background pairing, there's like 1 queliot scene and then 1 or 2 other references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 21:30:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18269675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donutcats/pseuds/donutcats
Summary: "Hey, I dunno what the fuck our next go around has in store, but guess what?""What?" Her hands travel around his shoulders, up to frame his jaw."I'm gonna find you. Like, track you down if I have to type of find you. Soulmates, remember? You're the one that fed me that bullshit and now I believe it, so really this is on you."





	be still my foolish heart (don't ruin this on me)

**Author's Note:**

> I fell face first into the magicians and after realizing there isn't quite nearly enough penny/julia content, especially when we get amazing things like penny calling them soulmates and all the different timelines, I decided to create it myself. this is just an idea I had and I cobbled together late at night, with vague context and set in some sort of future after the monster. this is my first time writing for wickodi so please let me know if they seem ooc 
> 
> title from almost (sweet music) by hozier, because I was listening to his album while writing and it's just a good vibe.

The first thing Julia sees when she opens her eyes is light. Not blinding, not sharp and cutting in any way she’d expect. It’s warm, gilding the edges of everything in a soft glow. The yellow of the leaves on every tree sunshine bright, the grass cast in honeyed hues.

The second thing she sees, is herself. Balancing on what looks to be a tightrope of gold, gossamer skirts brushing against her legs. The ambient light that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere at once, makes her glint gold, stacks of rings and bracelets and delicate loops of necklaces.

“Who are you?” She asks, because it seems like the thing to do. When faced with a conundrum, with a situation she doesn’t particularly remember how she got into, starting out fishing for information always seems smart. “Are you, _me?_ ” In any semblance of a normal life, those words strung together in that order would boggle anyone else's mind. But she’s seen some shit. Been through some other shit. If anything those three words are simple in comparison.

“Maybe. Could have been. Might be.” With fluid grace, she’s twisting herself over the side of the high wire, curling her legs at the last moment to catch the golden rope behind her knees. This mirror version of Julia stares at her, hanging upside down, hair dripping down in whorls and messy loops.

“That’s. Not really an answer.” Julia walks forward, until she’s craning her neck back to meet her eyes.

“I’m the Goddess of possibilities, probabilities. What if’s, have done’s, could’ve been’s. Some other random things they shoved at me because apparently I’m a minor Goddess and no one else had the room in their resume to be the ruler of every second Wednesday, or whatever.” With another quick movement, she’s falling to the ground, landing soundlessly on the grass.

In a blink, the tightrope is gone, and the Goddess looks more like a child now. A preteen girl with messily braided pigtails. She eerily reminds Julia of her shade, of her at twelve years old, but she doesn’t feel like poking at it any more than she already has. No need for a Goddess sized headache on top of everything else.

“Who I am really doesn’t matter. What I can do for you, now that’s why you’re here.”

Another blink, and they’re in a hallway. The lighting has lost it’s honey glow, has turned some cool beige tone. Julia instinctively looks up, expecting to see fluorescent lights lining the ceiling, but is met with nothing.

“And what can you do for me?”

“Full of questions.” The little girl turns, and skips barefoot towards the closest door. “See, that’s why you’re here. You want to know so much, and in asking for help, I decided to answer. Help another Goddess out, you know? Gotta stick together, us minors.”

“Right.”

“I deal in possibilities, which means; something I have access to is all those other timelines of yours. Doomed and successful alike. Other probable outcomes of your lives.”

“But,” and now Julia’s head is spinning a bit. Because, well, this isn’t what she expected at all when she needed help with yet another problem her and her friends managed to find themselves in. “Successful?”

“Oh. Right. That Chatwin girl told you about time loops. But, see. Her little adventure in time magic aren’t the only timelines. Now that’d just be silly. Ever heard of the Multiverse Theory?”

Julia nods, eyes taking in the seemingly infinite hallway, the doors stamped at intervals along each wall.

“Where do you think mortals got it from? Honestly, sometimes I think you’re smarter than we give you credit for. But then you make terrible political decisions that are almost as bad as the Gods, which lemme tell you, is a feat.”

“So, these doors all lead to other timelines?” She doesn’t want to talk about the socio-political state the world is in right now, least of all to a child Goddess that’s currently picking at a splinter on one of the doors.

“Not the current timelines, no. More like. Memories of those timelines. Snapshot moments.” The Goddess snaps her fingers, and the hallway shrinks. The vaguely dark void rushes forward until the end of the hallway is just barely in sight. “There’s 39 doors here. While yes, the possible variations and probable differences of your life are infinite and never quite have an end, those little loops of yours are probably where you’ll find your answer.”

“Wait, _probably?_ ” Which, isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement.

“I don’t deal in absolutes. It goes against my character.”

With a wink, she’s gone, and Julia is left alone in an empty hallway with nothing but 39 doors all hiding doomed timelines behind them.

“Wonderful.” She picks a door, and turns the knob.

 

===

 

“Q,” Julia slams down a book in front of him, effectively startling him out of whatever study daze he’s found himself in. “I need your help with something.”  
  
“Jesus, at least warn a guy first.” Quentin mumbles, trying and failing to sit up straighter in his chair.

She ignores him, slipping in across the table from him, pushing some of his books to the side. Gently, because she doesn’t want to ruin anything he’s working on. Though, Quentin in the library before dinner gives off vibes of hiding more so than studying.

“I found this spell, and it’s probably going to sound stupid but. Bare with me, ok?” She flips through the pages, finding the section she carefully dogeared.

“What’s it for?” And now he looks interested, less drawn into himself, like the promise of magic woke up something inside of him.

“Well. To summon a soulmate.”  
  
“A soulmate.” His tone is flat, his eyebrow raised.

“Stupid, I know. But I’m curious, and you can’t tell me the thought of knowing if soulmates really exist isn’t something that’s appealing.” She leans forward, into his space, already starting to smile.

With a sigh, Quentin pulls the book towards himself, hunching over it in that way of his whenever he reads. “It says it’ll call to your soulmate, _across lifetimes?_ That seems a bit much.”

“Some of it seems overly poetic and embellished, honestly.”

“You need something ‘ _of extreme personal value, of which represents a part of your soul that your other half-_ ” he snorts at that, “ _would be drawn to_.’ Okay.” The word is drawn out, as he pushes the book back, letting it sit between them. “What’s your personal item?”

Julia came prepared, so she digs into her jacket pocket and produces the trinket.

“A _penny?_ ”

“Not just any penny! Do you remember when we were kids, and it was one of the first times we were really allowed to spend time around the city without our parents. We found one of those penny pressing machines, and I was so upset that neither one of us had any change on us, so you went up and down the entire sidewalk. For like, ten minutes you searched, and then came running back with a penny looking so victorious.”

By now, Quentin is smiling, laughing softly to himself. “And I said you better appreciate that thing because I worked _so hard_ to get it for you.”

“We got ice cream afterwards, and spent the rest of the afternoon in the park, reenacting our favorite scenes from the Fillory books.” Julia sets the penny down with a definitive click. “Later, when we were laying under our table, and you’d already fallen asleep, I told myself that if I ever found anyone who loved me half as much as you do, I’d be super lucky. So I call it my Perfect Day Penny.”

Quentin’s smile melts into something so fond, melancholic at the very edges. “Yeah, alright. Let’s find your fucking soulmate.”

 

===

 

“Are you Penny?”

“Who’s asking?” He’s sitting at one of the desks in the back, feet propped up on the table, chair tilting precariously. He’s got the whole, cool unaffected vibe going for him, Julia will admit.

“I’m Julia, your ‘study buddy’.” She tries for a smile, the type she knows is polite but still warm. Because she’s practiced and perfected it. There’s a girl sitting next to Penny, all wild curls and angry boots, and Julia gets the impression she interrupted something. “If you’re… busy, we can always meet up at the library later.”

The chair clunks against the hardwood, and Penny languidly stretches himself to his full height as he stands. “Whatever, we can head out now. Get this shit over with.”

“See ya later tonight then, Penny.” The girls says, around the gum in her mouth, legs spread a bit wide as she looks Julia up and down.

Julia isn’t one to worry about her looks, or compare herself to others. But in this moment, with the embodiment of punk music and bad choices sitting in front of her, giving her a critical once over, Julia wonders what she’s thinking, wonders what she must look like. With her blazer and pencil skirt and messenger bag that has a few stupid pins stuck on the strap that Q got her for her birthday.

Julia who threw herself so readily into the role of enthusiastic student, standing in front of these people who so obviously project the aura of not caring. It’s a little unsettling, really. To feel like she doesn’t matter. Like she’s an obstacle for them.

Penny throws a nod towards the other girl, a quick _yeah alright_ , and then he’s following Julia out.

A bit later, they’re sat around a table in the library, Julia trying the same motions over and over until she _understands_ them, and Penny once again leaning back in his chair. Except now he’s watching her, and it makes her a bit thumb heavy, makes her have to start over a few too many times.

“I know you don’t want to be doing this, and I know I came on kind of strong right after class, but this spell and all it’s variations are something I’ve been dying to learn. So, if you could just do your half of the work. I’m sure things would go a lot faster.”

She doesn’t mean to be snappy, it’s something she’s been trying to work on ever sense Quentin brought it up, once. It just _comes out_ snappy, because he’s just _looking_ at her.

The legs of his chair once again snap to the floor, and he leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Tell you what, we flip a coin,” He pulls a penny out of his pocket, which makes Julia give him a _look_ . “Yeah, shut up I know. Heads, I do it later at some point, and tails I do it now under your _supervision_.”

She watches silently as he flips the coin in the air and catches it. Before he has time to reveal it, she lifts her hands and very obviously casts a spell, right where he can see while looking him in the eye, and watches as the coin is shown to be tails.

“Bossy _and_ a cheat. My kind of woman.” Penny’s smirk stretches across his face, as he leans back and grabs at one of the textbooks. “Alright, I get the point you’re making. I didn’t know we were on a time limit, but hey. Whatever.”

He thankfully starts at the beginning, instead of trying to half ass his way from the middle, and to Julia’s surprise he catches up to her quickly. Once Penny focuses all of his attention, it’s like he eats it up. Flipping through the pages, his hands flashing as he goes through each set.

“Your thumb is all wrong.” She says, after a few seconds of watching his current spell continue to fail. She had a bit of a hard time on it too, only a few short minutes ago.

“What?”

“Here, it’s- let me show you-” and she’s scooting closer, grabbing at his hand and moving his thumb the correct way. “You start out with Proper 21 but then-”

“If this is going to turn into a Patrick Swayze Ghost moment, warn me now so I can prepare myself.”

Julia blinks, caught off guard by not only the wild change in subject, but also the image that reference conjures up. “Why, do you need to emotionally prepare to be Demi Moore in this scenario?”

Penny laughs, something quick and amused, like it was startled out of him. “What? No. I meant so I can be ready to use any excuse to make this more _intimate_ .” He pulls her chair a fraction closer, eyebrow doing a _thing_.

It’s Julia’s turn to laugh, something crossed with a huff and a snort, and a giggle tucked away in the corners. “Oh, wow. Good to know you’re a flirt. Really though, if you cast with your thumb like that, it’ll go all wrong.”

There’s a smile curling at the edges of Penny’s mouth, making him look softer than before. “Good to know I have a _study buddy_ that doesn’t want me to blow up.”

“Of course not, Penny. You’re much too pretty.”

At his stunned yet delighted look, Julia goes right back to her textbook, not allowing him any room to reply right away. Let him stew in it for a few minutes, until he thinks of something good in response.

Suffice to say, he never makes it to see that girl later in the night, as they spend hours talking and flipping through books and finding excuses to touch each other’s hands.

 

===

 

The only things she can hear are the dull fluttering of a thousand mouth wings, the pounding of her blood in her ears, and the muffled sounds of someone yelling.

She hits the floor, and the sharp pain in her shoulder is nothing in comparison to the fire in her stomach. Or, what was left of her stomach. Or. She’s not sure, of specifics. Not right now. She just knows the Beast stuck his entire hand _somewhere_ inside of her abdomen and _ripped_ , and now she’s on the floor.

“Oh fuck, _oh fuck_. Jules, hey can you hear me? Shit _shit_. This wasn’t supposed to happen. We were gonna get it _right_ this time. Hey, babe, stay with me. _Quentin!_ ”

“It’s ok.” Julia finds her voice, lifts her hands to frame Penny’s face. There’s a hole in her, she knows this, and maybe she’s in shock but she feels like she should be more worried. Except. They’re all doomed anyways. This is one of those doomed time loops Dean Fogg told her about. It has to be. Because Margo is a Niffin. Alice is already dead. Because Penny’s crying. What type of successful timeline has Penny crying?

“It’s _not_ ok. This is so fucking _far_ from ok.”

“Hey, shh. Listen. Just- I love you, ok? I love you and it’s no one’s fault. We’ll get it right next time.”

“Ok.” He chokes on the word, pulls her body closer, and her hands slip slide on his face. “Yeah, _fuck_. Ok. _I love you_.”

 

===

 

“I’ll go with Q and Dean Fogg to get the Rhinemann Ultra, and you check in on the Library. See if there’s literally anything that we could be missing.” Julia explains, stuffing her arms into her coat. He absently helps her with one of the sleeves, which managed to get stuck inside of itself somehow. Kissing his cheek, she heads towards the door, where Quentin is waiting.

“Hey, wait.” He calls, and Julia does, turns towards him and tilts her head, waiting for the goodbye kiss, and he delivers. Because it’s inevitable, always a last kiss no matter what. If they’ll be gone 5 minutes or 5 hours. They never know when it’ll be the _last_ these days.  
  
Stepping away, he flips a coin to her, which she catches deftly.

“A _penny?_ ”

“Something to remember me by.” He adds with a stupid smirk, and then he’s gone in a blink, traveling away.

 

===

 

“If you could go anywhere in the world,” Penny starts, sprawled out on the lawn of the Cottage, “where would you go?”

“A beach, probably.” Julia answers, absently as she flips through a textbook filled with Propers, and tucks some hair behind her ear. Penny does this a lot, asks her about fantasy vacations, about spontaneous trips she’d want to take.

He hasn’t figured out how to take people with him, not yet. So he’s planning, Julia’s sure of it. Waiting for the moment where he can grab her hand and take her any place she wants.

“I think Fillory would be pretty cool.” Quentin answers too, unprompted, sat between Eliot’s legs. Because Eliot Waugh would never degrade himself to sit on the _grass_. So he sits in a lawn chair, the wooden kind, his legs spread wide, Quentin slotted between them, forehead pressed to his knee.

“Can you stop with the nerd shit for like, five seconds?” Penny snaps, rolls onto his side so he’s pressed against Julia’s thigh.

Julia counts to five in her head, barely paying attention to the hand diagrams on the page, waiting for the inevitable-

“....and _5_. I’m just saying I’m super into the idea of being able to Travel to Fillory.”

“Holy shit. I can’t. I just can’t anymore. He actually waited five seconds-” He presses his face into the material of her jacket, letting out a long groan. She fails miserably at hiding her laughter, which makes Penny huff. As consolation, she runs a hand down his neck, traces a circle with her thumb right behind his ear. His irritated huff turns into a sigh, and she counts it as a win.

“When we’re inevitably rich and famous,” Eliot pipes up, stroking his free hand through Quentin’s hair, as the other is occupied with a drink, “you can create your own Fillory in our backyard, baby. Like Neverland, but less creepy.”

Quentin smiles, rolling a penny along his knuckles. “At least someone cares.”

 

===

 

She’s sitting on the Brakebills sign, one leg tucked under her, the other dangling as she knocks her heel against one of the L’s. The sun is at the tail end of setting, everything already cast in the cool tones of night, the edges saturated in that specific pink that only the sun can create.

Julia sighs, watching the cigarette in her hand eat away, the ash stacking up until it falls into the grass under its own weight. Something in her feels broken, hollowed out. She wonders if this is what it feels like, to not have a shade. To feel like there’s a yawning, cracked expanse sitting just inside her chest.

But if she didn’t have a shade, if the books and her experience with her friends are right, then she wouldn’t _care_ about how utterly and completely alone she feels. Like a little raft set adrift in an endless sea, knowing her safe port to call home was smashed to driftwood. A shadeless Julia would be alone, and she’d be ok.

She chokes on the smoke, chokes on a sob, both settled themselves in the back of her throat. The coughing manages to morph into crying, tripping over itself when she can’t decide which hurts more, as she curls into herself on top of the stone.

The sun has fully set now, and everything is so quiet. Brakebills is so unnaturally _quiet_ , and Julia can’t stand it. Everything she knows, everything she came to love, ripped from her so violently. When she closes her eyes she swears she can still imagine the exact feeling of his blood on her hands, on her face. The faint echoes of the Beast chuckling. Everything falling so very still and so very _quiet_ in his wake, leaving her alive but broken.

Like a little doll with all of her strings snapped, cut at the joints. She curls into herself even further, digs into her pocket until she feels the worn edges of a penny. Holds it so tightly she won’t be surprised if she starts bleeding.

And she screams. Screams and screams, into the dull, silent air. Everything is gone, and Julia is so empty.

 

===

 

The sketch she’s holding is of an anchor, with some bits around the edges. Penny’s talking about the other Traveler he saw, about how the old man with one leg insisted he get this tattoo. Because it’ll keep him from traveling. It’ll keep him in one place and all he’ll be able to do is astral project.

“If you get this, how will you be able to control it?”

“That’s the point. I can’t control it. What if I end up somewhere dangerous and life threatening? At least this way I’ll stand a fucking chance.” He throws himself onto her bed, his shirt and scarf already half falling off his shoulders.

“It’s like, caging yourself, Pen.” She turns to him, crawls up from the floor and kneels next to him. “You can’t control it if you just lock it away. It’s your _magic_. It’s, a part of you.”

“It feels like a fucking curse.”

“An arrow needs to be _aimed_ to land true. All this does,” she waves the paper in the air, listening as it makes a slightly crunchy, wobbly sound, “is the equivalent of you tossing your arrow to the ground and making it _imagine_ hitting the target.”

Penny chuckles, moving up to rest on his elbows. “I appreciate how you stuck to that arrow metaphor. But seriously Jules, I think this is what’s best.”

“This is you fucking crippling yourself Penny.” With a quick twist of her wrists, she tears the paper in half, crumbling the rest up and throwing it to the floor. “Get mad all you want, but I’m not going to let you. We’ll research and study and figure out everything we can to make it safer, but I don’t want you cutting off part of your magic because the Dean thinks it’s a good idea. He’s a high functioning alcoholic, what does he know!”

“Ok, ok.” He’s sitting up now, hands out in a gesture that feels equal measures placating and surrendering. There’s a hint of a laugh curled in his mouth, and he takes her hands in his. “Shit, when you get this passionate about something, you know I’m gonna trust you over any old fuck who thinks he knows best. You’re the smartest person I know.”

“Definitely the smartest person in this room.” The heat of building frustration and anger simmers low, replaced by the warmth in her belly she gets every time Penny says those things. Like he believes in her, or he trusts her.

“Oh, haha.” And then he’s moving forward, catching his mouth against hers and swallowing her laughter as he tips them both over, fully onto the bed.

 

===

 

"I'm a little glad that Dean Fogg told us about the time loop." Julia says, a weird mixture of hopeful but ultimately sad about it all, as she stares up at the ceiling. They’re in Penny’s room, filled with colorful fabrics and various knick knacks thrown into piles. There’s a carelessness about things, interspaced with genuine thought. It’s very Penny, and it’s one of Julia’s favorite places.

"Oh yeah, why's that?" They’re tangled up in his bed together, his head laying on her stomach, so his words feel muffled from where he has his face half pressed against her.

"Because, I know that even though we're all doomed, even though Eliot is dead, and Q is a mess, and we have absolutely no chance at defeating the Beast, we're going to have another try at this. We're going to get it right at _some_ point."

Penny hums, kisses a bit of bare stomach where her shirt rides up. "I mean, we've already had 39 chances, who the fuck knows. Maybe fortieth times the charm."

Julia laughs, a small quiet thing, and her hands smooth down the back of Penny's neck. "Yeah, maybe."

"Hey," and now he's leveraging himself up onto his elbows, crawling forward so he can be on eye level with her. "I dunno what the fuck our next go around has in store, but guess what?"

"What?" Her hands travel around his shoulders, up to frame his jaw. She can’t help but smile at him, especially when he’s like this. When it’s the two of them in his room, and they’re both softer around the edges.

"I'm gonna find you. Like, track you down if I have to type of find you. Soulmates, remember? You're the one that fed me that bullshit and now I believe it, so really this is on you."

A laugh bubbles up, louder than before, and it fills her chest. Things feel pretty terrible right now. More than terrible, they passed terrible ages ago. But somehow, right now, they managed to carve out a little moment among the chaos. Penny sounds so sure of himself, voice full of conviction, and it makes her feel _radiant_.

"Maybe I'll be the one finding _you_. And then we'll finally kick the Beasts ass, and live happily ever after. Sound like a plan, Pen?"

"Sounds pretty fucking perfect."

 

===

 

Julia opens her eyes with a gasp, and the first thing she notices is the light. A bit blinding, a bit white. But then she blinks, sucks in some air, remembers how to breathe, and she realizes it’s just the way the sun is reflecting, bouncing off of every bit of white furniture and wall of Kady’s apartment. Making things seem brighter.

The second thing she notices is Penny 23, sitting on one of the couches, watching her. There’s a book on one of the cushions, like it was discarded there, and a half eaten bag of chips laying on the coffee table. Idly, she wonders how long he’s been there. A little voice in her head says _always_.

“You ok?” He asks, in that calm voice he really only uses with her. It always brings her up short, catches at her. Such a contrast to the way Penny 40 would speak. Always sarcastic and seemingly a full inch away from some sort of irritation induced breakdown. Not that Penny 23 hasn’t ever had those type of moments, or that he’s never sarcastic. Actually, Julia thinks it’s just one of those personality traits that no amount of trauma can really erase. The biting sarcasm.

But it’s never directed at her, and when it is, there’s always a smile to soften it. It’s a bit like how she remembers 40 looking at Kady. But different. Julia can’t explain it, not really, but that little voice reminds her of what she just saw. Insists on it being so vastly different.

Quentin shuffles in then, hair a little messy, shirt rumpled. He hasn’t been sleeping since... Well, Julia can’t remember the last time he slept.

“Oh hey, you’re back. How’d it go?” He folds himself into a chair, and that’s another thing that’s consistent. Quentin’s inability to sit correctly in a chair, no matter the timeline. “Get any leads on your Goddess Problem, trademarked?”

“I think so.” She picks herself off the floor and sits on the other end of the couch, continuously catching Penny’s eye and sliding her gaze away. “I was shown memories. Or, moments I guess. Of other time loops.”

“Oh shit, really? I bet that was heavy.” Quentin grabs at the bag of chips, and Penny just huffs, tries to snip something about stealing that falls on deaf ears, as both of them refocus on Julia. “Get any clues, or like, I dunno. A big map with a flashing ‘this is what you need’ on it?”

“I think I need,” she chews on her lip for a second, just a beat of silence, as she considers. Decides _fuck it_. “A penny.”

“A _penny?_  I think I have one in my pocket?”

“I don’t think it needs to be so. Uhm. _Literal,_ Q.” She can’t even look at Penny when she says it, her gaze fixed on Quentin. As she watches his face start out on confusion and make its way to a dawning realization.

“Right. I’m going to, uh. Check on Eliot.” And just like that, he’s pulling himself out of the chair and taking the chips with him.

Silence descends, settles in the space between them, nothing but the faint click of a door in the background. Julia shifts, pulls her legs closer. For a brief moment, she’s reminded of the timeline where it was just her. Her and an empty, silent Brakebills, and almost on instinct she wants to start making noise. She stops herself, tamps down the urge to yell and prove she’s not alone.

Penny slides an arm across the back of the couch, leans back into the cushions. He looks comfortable like that, familiar. He breaks the silence first, and a little selfish part of her is grateful. “So, you saw a penny in all these, what? Visions?”

He doesn’t sound like he’s teasing, or like he doesn’t believe her. It’s that specific tone of patience that Julia will only ever relate to Penny 23 and no one else. “I saw multiple Penny’s, actually.” She tries for a joke, but Penny gets that confused eyebrow tilt. “I saw you, and me. And, there wasn’t always an actual, physical penny, like the currency. But, I think it was just for symbolism anyways.”

“We knew each other in more timelines than 23?” He sounds. Shocked. Hopeful. A breathy quality to his voice, a look in his eyes like he _needs_ to know. Like he never really thought about it, but now that the idea is presented, it’s his absolute favorite thing.

“We knew each other in _all_ of them, Penny. In every single one, except this one. And I think, somehow, for some reason, you’re a part of… my story.” As she says the words, there’s something so natural about them.

And sure, she still has reservations, she still has her mountain of issues, and accepting that Penny is here, for _her,_  is something she has to get used to. But it still feels _right._  Like something slotting into place.  
  
“I think you were right, when I first saw you.” She reaches across, takes his hand in both of hers, curls her mouth into a smile and adds a playful little roll of her eyes. “Soulmates.”

“I like the sound of it even more when you’re the one saying it.”

She’s going to explain it all to him, she’s going to tell him how in every single loop she saw, she loved him. How they always found each other, except for the one time she never went to Brakebills. But right now, she’s just happy. With his hand in hers, and his face forming a tentative smile, and the idea of being with Penny settling warm and right in her heart. Right now, she just wants this.

This snapshot moment that she hopes files itself behind one of those Multiverse doors, so someone else passing through can peak in, and see the moment Julia realized she can forge something happy for herself.


End file.
